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Monday, February 06, 2012

Mailbox Madness and Miscellaneous Malarky

How's that title for some Monday morning alliteration??! I haven't even had coffee today. I think a round of applause is in order. I also put up Valentine's Day stickies on my office window, so it's possible I've been body-snatched.

I don't usually participate in Mailbox Monday, but this past week has seen a noticeable deluge of books coming into my house. Lately, it seems that if I wish out loud on my blog or Twitter, a book magically appears in my house! Usually, it's thanks to a wonderful blogger or author who decide to be my book fairy.

I should also mention: Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia and is gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday is hosted by MetroReader in February.

Find blurbs for each book near the end of this post!

If you haven't heard of Cinder by Marissa Meyer you may have experienced a recent head injury and a damaging case of the forgetfuls. It's EVERYWHERE. And it just so happens to look really really good. Cinderella + cyborg = kickass. Vasillyis kind and generous and sent her ARC along to me since she was done with it.

Next, I was happily Tweeting about how much I want to try Eowyn Ivey's novel, The Snow Child, when BAM!!! A woooonderful, quite popular author direct messaged and offered to send her ARC! Her exact words, "I don't usually give ARCs away, but I like putting books in the hands of bloggers." Right on! She remains nameless here because I don't know if she wants the world to know she's giving away her ARCs. I'm moving her book up in my reading queue, too. :D Very sweet indeed.

I also accepted two books for review recently. While I've been laying off of the review books these looked intriguing enough to add to my downsized TBR. I have a good relationship with the publishers and the pitches were very kind, well-thought, and seemed to actually have a clue what I prefer to read and blog! Huzzah!!! Is this progress?! I think it just might be!

White Horse is the first in a debut trilogy from Alex Adams (published by Atria). I'm picky about my post-apocalyptic novels, and after my undying love for The Passage, we'll see if this one can hold a candle. Crossing my fingers.

Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin looks weird-wonderful. I'm all about weird spirit photography and spiritualism and that kinda stuff. This one is published by Sourcebooks Fire for children and young readers. The illustrations in this one look great, and the book itself is beautiful.

Cinder blurb:Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earths fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. Shes a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsisters illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kais, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her worlds future.

The Snow Child blurb:Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

White Horse blurb:

Thirty-year-old Zoe wants to go back to college. That’s why she cleans cages and floors at GeneTech. If she can keep her head down, do her job, and avoid naming the mice she’ll be fine. Her life is calm, maybe even boring, until the end of the world when the President of the United States announces that humans are no longer a viable species. Zoe starts running the moment she realizes everyone she loves is gone. On her trek she encounters characters both needy and nefarious: some human, some monster, and some uncertain beings altered by genetic mutation. Zoe comes to see that humanity is defined not by genetic code, but by soulful actions and choices.

Picture the Dead blurb: A ghost will find his way home. Jennie Lovell's life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiance falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past. When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone-or something-stops her?

What landed in your house this week?? Come on, enable me just a bit more!

28 comments:

I'm almost finished listening to Cinder on audio and have enjoyed it, though I guess the rampant "OMG this book is amazing!" saturation skewed me a bit. Expectations were, perhaps, a little too high. Still, a very interesting read! Hope you enjoy it (and all your new reads).

I loved Cinder and thought it was really a cool little book. Too bad that we will have to wait so long for a sequel! I also want to read The Snow Child, and think that I am going to go ahead and grab that one, as I have seen it EVERYWHERE! Great stack today! I still have one to go out to you as well. Hopefully I can get that done this week!

Got nothing in my mailbox, but I sold some books back to the store and got store credit. I ended up buying Mark Twain's autobiography (it is gigantic), as well as Shirley by Charlotte Bronte and Sandition by Austen. :)

My mailbox also included Cinder which I'm pumped about. I almost bought The Snow Child the other day, but frugal angel made me put it down. Can't wait to hear what you think about it. I'm also interested in White Horse - so, I am insanely jealous of your book haul and hope you enjoy all of them!

I am the anti-enabler...I've only ordered one book this year, and I'm still waiting for it to show up on the doorstep (gotta love Powells and their slow boat from China shipping policy). So I'll just live vicariously through you, with all your shiny new books.

Meg, I'm looking forward to it from a somewhat academic standpoint which actually does help temper the OMG factor. I'm going in cool, and we'll see how it compares to the other retellings/reinventions I've read.

Heather, I'm so bad at reading series books -- you'll probably have to remind me when the new one comes out. lol I hope you enjoy The Snow Child when you get around to it. Hopefully sooner than later for me, but my obligation books are beginning to stack up (a situation I try to avoid). Ack!

Allie, I loooove me some store credit! Enjoy your new beauties!

Thanks, Kathleen! I'm excited about the new books but the review obligations are starting to stack up -- exactly what I try to avoid!